Adventures of Calo Nord: Volume One
by J. C'Baoth
Summary: A young Calo Nord, destined to become an infamous bounty hunter, escapes the moon of V'Sar with his new employer, an old friend from his days as a slave.


"Hey, you," the tall Trandoshan snarled at him, causing a great hush to fall over the entire cantina, "You steal from Firr!"

The moon of V'Sar was sparsely populated, so when a bounty was posted, if you hadn't already made it off-world, there were very few places to go where you could remain inconspicuous. Calo picked this location, though, because its dim lighting made it more difficult for anyone to see him, thus buying him the time he needed before his new employer arrived and whisked him away from this pit of vermin. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on the ultra-sensitive eyesight of a Trandoshan spotting him.

The Trandoshan, towering at two and a half meters in height, repeated the accusation that he had directed at the young human male sitting alone in a shadowed corner of the establishment.

"I took what belonged to me," Calo said without the mildest trace of anxiety or fear in his voice, "And unless you intend to do something about it, I'd clear out of here. Now."

The Trandoshan smiled sinisterly as he approached the human, keeping one hand firmly on his sword as he prepared to collect his bounty.

"You steal from Firr," he said a third time. Firr, the Quarren who handled the local crime syndicate, reported that his body guard, Calo Nord, disappeared with over three hundred thousand credits, but what wasn't in the report was that Calo had raided the arsenal as well.

"I'm going to give you until the count of three," Calo stated confidently.

"Small boy talk big," the Trandoshan growled, "Lucky for small boy, he worth more alive."

"One," Calo replied, quickly glancing down at the smoke grenade that was hidden underneath the table.

"You come with me now," The thug hissed indignantly.

"Two," Calo slowly retracted his hand towards his blaster pistol.

"Enough!" Swiftly, the Trandoshan drew his sword and raised it above his head.

"Three."

With a good kick, Calo sent the concealed smoke grenade flying towards the reptile who was hit cleanly in the chest, where it detonated. As the dark black mist filled the cantina and others evacuated, Calo Nord leapt over the table agilely and quickly landed on his fallen enemy, putting his blaster pistol beneath the Trandoshan's chin and pulling the trigger.

"Calo?" a voice said from his wrist communicator.

"Perfect timing as always, Nogras," Calo sighed.

"Listen we just pulled into orbit, but we've been having some difficulty finding a landing pad," Nogras explained.

Calo wasn't surprised. V'Sar was used to small starfighters and occasionally a light freighter or two. Such a small moon didn't have room to dock a massive battle cruiser like _The Brass Eagle_.

"We're negotiating sending in one of our smaller assault ships with one of the docks right now," Nogras continued, "but it might take a while. These damn pirates are trying to swindle every last credit they can out of us."

"How long?" Calo grumbled.

"An hour. Two hours tops," he said.

"I haven't got that long, Nogras," Calo protested, "Every bounty hunter on this rock is looking for me and the neighborhood crime slime wants my blood."

"What did you do?"

"He was my former employer. I told you he wouldn't take too kindly to my resignation. He wouldn't give me my salary, so let's just say I didn't leave him much choice."

"You can't lay low for just a few more hours?"

"I have a better idea," Calo said, "I'm sending you coordinates planetside. Don't ask where they lead. Just land there and shoot at anything that gives you trouble."

"I'm putting a lot of trust in you for a new employee, you know," Nogras pointed out.

Calo hesitated before saying, "What are friends for?"

"We'll be on the surface in seven minutes," Nogras conceded.

Calo smiled with satisfaction. As the smoke from his grenade dissolved, he saw that his little stunt with the Trando had managed to clear out the entire cantina, including the bartender. Lying on the floor in front of him, mouth gaping open in surprise was the dead lizard, cold blood and scaly skin strewn about the floor around him. Calo scowled. He didn't like messy work.

Calo walked in alleyways, trying to keep to the shadows as he approached the rendezvous point. Not that he had to hide, of course, for he surely had the capabilities to wipe out everyone on the moon of V'Sar without running out of ammunition, but he didn't have the time or patience to deal with that right now.

He arrived in the town square with four minutes to spare, just enough time to cause a bit of trouble before he left. The town square was a massive slab of concrete that was two hundred meters by fifty meters, surrounded on all sides by spaceports, cantinas, entertainment units, and smuggler's dens. Standing in the center of the town square, one would have thought that they had fallen into the most urban center that side of Nar Shaddaa, but it was all a façade. Behind the towering complexes were huts and swamps and vast expanses of treacherous bogs.

As Calo Nord stepped into the center of the town square, he heard the unsheathing of vibroswords and the sound a blaster made when being removed from its holster. With a smirk, Calo drew his own blaster and waited.

"Well, thief," a familiar voice called, "It seems you have not yet escaped V'Sar."

Calo slowly turned to see Firr standing in his third story balcony. Every sentient in the plaza had weapons at the ready and aimed at Calo.

"You are not as wily as I perceived," Firr laughed coldly.

"I just didn't want to leave without saying goodbye," Calo's words reverberated through the town square like wind in the mountains.

Firr's eyes narrowed, "You sicken me."

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

Firr flipped a switch on his balcony and the platform separated from the rest of the building, hovering in the air and floating down to ten meters from where Calo stood.

"Neat trick," Calo said as Firr dismounted his balcony and approached him. When Firr was standing only about a meter away, he peered closely into Calo's eyes.

"You will return what is mine and die quickly," Firr demanded, "or refuse and be tortured until your body can no longer resist death."

Calo spit in Firr's face and a bounty hunter fired at him, missing by only a few centimeters.

"Hold fire," Firr roared, "He is mine to kill!"

The bounty hunters grumbled with impatience but they obeyed. Firr took an Ozurus Acid knife from his belt and pressed it to Calo's armor, causing a fizzling as the two surfaces touched.

"That was a mistake, Nord."

Calo knew that he could easily smack the knife from Firr's hand, grab him by the throat, and throttle him to death, but the bounty hunters all watched him. Their calculating minds waiting for the fight to take a violent turn.

"No, Firr," Calo said quietly, "The mistake was yours. The mistake was trust. You trusted me and I stole from you, and now you're going to die because of that trust."

This time, Firr did not laugh, for just as Calo said this, _The Brass Eagle_ swooped into view, coming to a halt above the town square, cannons blazing away, wiping out a row of bounty hunters.

Seeing his employees being slaughtered and his headquarters smashed by the turbolasers, Firr's eyes widened with rage.

"You'll pay for this, Nord!"

"Maybe in hell," Calo shrugged.

Falling to his knees in despair, Firr watched as the moon he had called his for nearly two decades smothered under the fire of Calo Nord's allies. Then he recalled the acid knife, still in his hand. He turned to see Calo approaching the boarding ramp of the starcruiser and vengeance burned within him. Firr stood, dagger raised, and charged at his enemy.

"Calo!" a man on the boarding ramp shouted, "Behind you!"

Instinctively, Calo grabbed his blaster, spun around and fired eight shots, each of them going through the tentacles on Firr's face, but not before the Acid knife was brought down into Calo's shoulder.

"Spast!" Calo swore loudly as he watched Firr's charred head fall to the ground in front of him.

"Come on, Calo, get on the ship, we'll get you to a medic," Nogras yelled to him.

As the boarding ramp to _The Brass Eagle _began to rise, Calo took one last, fleeting look at the moon of V'Sar, its only civilization now left in ruins on his account. It had always been a disgusting place to live, true, and filled with the scum of the galaxy, but it had been home since he escaped slavery when he was sixteen.

No, Calo thought, the only pain that accompanies leaving this place is the stab wound and acid burn on my arm.

And the ship left the atmosphere.


End file.
